Thanks to the Mystic Medusa for showcasing our Tarot of Portmeirion this week!

Don't miss Janet Boyer's lovely review of our Tarot of Portmeirion deck.

Did you know you can generate and download your own symbolic calendar each month (for free)?  Visit our MysteryArts.com/magic site, scroll to the bottom of the page, and give it a try.

"'And? And?' he prompted."
—Katherine Kurtz, The Temple and the Crown, 2001, p. 178

"In a cloud of people, we humans still can easily recognise and then be attentive to the voice of a particular person(s) we know." —Tetsuya Hoya, Artificial Mind System

"My Mummy says I'm her little eyes and ears."
—Terry Bazes, Goldsmith's Return

"He couldn't unlatch the chain so he broke the door open with his shoulders."
—Wang Ping, Foreign Devil, 1996

An Animated Collage of a Hans Freibusch Mural

At the fairy-tale Welsh village of Portmeirion, Hans Feibusch's classical-style ceiling mural graces the archway of the Gate House.  The figures are pagan deities, reminiscent of ancient zodiacal personages at play in the heavens.  Acrobatically tumbling through the ethers, one figure atop a horse reaches out to join hands with another whose cape billows like a parachute.  Though their fingers haven’t yet touched, their eyes are locked.  The composition suggests a Yin/Yang balance and a clockwise cyclical flow.  These figures may symbolize a connection, bonding, or affinity.  They epitomize the quest for the Other that stretches us as human beings, at the risk of breaking our hearts.

The mural is too large to be photographed in a single frame.  We have animated the reconstruction of the complete image from 23 separate photographs.  Click here to choose your perspective.

"People don't eat chocolate: Such was the prevailing wisdom of the 1970s.  In the decade of leisure suits and disco, chocolate had become a pariah."
—Joël Glenn Brenner, The Emperors of Chocolate: Inside the Secret World of Hershey and Mars (2000)

"The cone room turned out to be shaped like a giant cone, unsurprisingly.  In its center was an old woman wearing a snowy shroud.  'I am the Ice Queen Crone,' she said."
—Piers Anthony, Demons Don't Dream (1994)

"Not a single squirrel-cup was seen on our path to-day, yet they abound in many places."
—Susan Fenimore Cooper, Rural Hours (1850)

"No matter what I rolled, it was either a duplicate of something I already had on my score sheet or a useless set of dice that could only go into my 'Chance' column."
—Brian Frazer, Hyper-Chondriac (2007)

"The infant and the toddler are occasionally washed with water from a gourd."
—Wilfred Vernon Grigson, The Maria Gonds of Bastar (1938)

"After the bow of ribbon Katherine's heart soon flies.  Unlike her sister, whose heart has found a safe resting place among her own people, Katherine's heart must rove from home—must know the utmost all that life holds of both joy and sorrow."
—from the description of Amelia E. Barr's The Bow of Orange Ribbon

"The test is absolute; for in one ear there is no hearing, and in the other there is hearing."
—Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain, Pharmaceutical Journal (1960)

"He played a Flight of the Bumble Bee on the clarinet that was breathtaking.  He was amazing.  I felt an effervescence inside when I heard this guy."
—Gene Lees, Cats of Any Color: Jazz Black and White (1994)

"She held up seven fingers and pointed to the bananas, for that's what they were called, the man told us."
—Hilda Satt Polacheck, I Came a Stranger (1989)